Baby Blues and Wedding Bells

by Patricia McLinn

  But, wait… He had touched her and held her like…like a man who wanted a woman.

  If it wasn’t in gratitude for helping him, then why…?

  Don’t you know how beautiful you are? How absolutely amazing?

  Oh, God. Oh, God. He’d been rescuing her.

  “Zach.”

  Steve swung up onto the bleachers beside him.

  Zach was surprised and not surprised. He’d migrated to his old spot in the bleachers without conscious thought. Far left end, third row from the top. Gave a good view of the practice field without being as visible as you would be on the top rows or down lower.

  “Steve.”

  “Fran said you went for a run. I thought I might find you here. We need to talk.”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  Their silence announced that neither knew where to start.

  “I love football,” Zach finally said. “I used to sit here watching practice. Day after day. Drills, conditioning, all the boring crap. Every minute. I could probably still run a practice from heart.”

  “You wanted to play that badly.”

  They’d both played sports as youngsters. Then Ambrose Corbett had died, and Lana had refused to let Steve play basketball or Zach play football. Only the country-club sports—golf, tennis and swimming—would do for her sons. Steve had shifted to swimming. Zach had refused any sport.

  “Yeah. I wanted to play that badly.”

  “I didn’t know. I thought…”

  “You thought I didn’t give a shit about anything.” Steve started to make a gesture. Zach cut it off. “It wasn’t your fault. I made sure nobody knew I wanted it, that I wanted anything.”

  Steve glanced at the field. “You never told me how you felt about football because you thought I sold out by settling for swimming.”

  Zach twisted his neck around so fast it cracked. “Hell, no!”

  “I wondered if seeing what happened when I wanted things made you think it was better to not want anything,” Steve said. “That spring, after Mother realized I wasn’t going to change my mind about marrying Annette…I know it made things harder on you.”

  “It’s a game I’ve played with myself sometimes, wondering how long I would have lasted in your shoes growing up. Because you were the real rebel.”

  “Me?” Steve laughed. “You’re the one who rode the motorcycle, had long hair, raised hell and left town. I was the one who made every curfew, never talked back and settled back here. Ask anybody in town and they’ll tell you—Zach Corbett’s the rebel.”

  “And they’d all be wrong. You were the real rebel because you had the strength to be independent. I ran because I don’t—didn’t—have that strength. You didn’t have to talk back to her because you did what you knew was right for you. You could come back because you would keep living your way wherever you were.”

  The amusement had died from Steve’s eyes. “And you couldn’t?”

  “No. If I’d stayed I would have caved in.”

  “You weren’t caving in. I heard you—”

  “Words—yeah, I had words. They weren’t going to be enough, not against her strength of will. When she gets that look…”

  “Like she’s been dipped in a vat of instant lacquer.”

  “That’s the one.” Zach’s grin twisted in the middle. “That offended-with-the-worm-that-is-my-son look.”

  Steve shook his head, thoughtful. “I think it’s when emotions threaten. She doesn’t know how to deal with them. So she puts on that iron facade.”

  “That’s no facade, that’s Lana through and through. I’ll give her this—the woman has always known what she wanted. And I didn’t. All I had was knowing I didn’t want to do it her way.”

  He gestured toward the field.

  “That’s the difference between us, Steve. You were like the kids playing offense—always heading toward something, a certain kind of life. That’s what kept pushing you forward no matter how many obstacles she put in your way. She knew that, too. That’s why Lana didn’t fight you harder over marrying Annette. You were fighting for something. Me, I was just fighting against. All my life, fighting against. All defense.”

  He was still watching the players, so he felt more than saw Steve’s frown. Zach never had been much for explaining. But something pushed him to want to explain now.

  Truth and oil always come to the surface. He could hear the old man saying that.

  “See number forty-two, the running back? Watch how he moves through this play—he’s running to get someplace. There—see him? Even when he gets tackled, his legs are still going, trying to go forward. Now watch somebody on defense—number sixty-three.”

  The ball was snapped and the players surged into motion. The lineman he’d arbitrarily picked pushed up against an opposing lineman, his big legs driving hard. Then the offensive player he was matched against hitched a step and slid to one side. Number sixty-three, abruptly denied an opposing force, lurched three strides then tumbled down without anyone touching him.

  “That was me, Steve. Number sixty-three. Fighting my damnedest when something stood in front of me, and falling over when I didn’t have something to fight against.”

  Steve stared at the field while the players went through two plays. “That’s why you left. You had that all figured out and—”

  Zach interrupted with a harsh laugh. “Hell, no, I didn’t have it figured out. I didn’t have a damned thing figured out. I just knew I had to get away. Some thread of self-preservation. It wasn’t more than a couple weeks before I realized that without Lana Corbett to go against, I didn’t have anything holding me up.”

  He swore. “Once I convinced myself I had to come back. Somebody had to fight her and maybe that’s what I was meant to do. I reached the town sign. It was dead dark, and the mist swirled in from the lake and made the lights go soft like maybe they didn’t exist. Like—what’s the movie, the one with the town that disappears?”

  “Brigadoon.”

  “Yeah, like Brigadoon. The town disappeared. So I turned my bike around and rode away.”

  “Did you think about Lily?”

  “Are you asking if I knew she was pregnant when I left?”

  “No.” The word sounded raw. “I know you better than that, Zach. I’m asking if you still had feelings for her.”

  Zach shook his head. “I broke it off in February. The last time Lily and I had sex was the end of January, beginning of February.”

  “But I saw you… I saw the two of you coming out of the motel. That was spring. And that night at home, you said—”

  “I remember. You tried to tell me to watch out for Lily. And I said it was too late. It was. Because it was over. She’d been trying to get me in bed that afternoon. I said no—at least I had that much integrity. When you saw us at the motel, we were coming out and I was telling her she’d find somebody better.”

  “That means Nell—”

  “Must have been conceived the last time we were together.”

  The silence that fell between them allowed sounds from the field to well up. Shouted signals, grunts, thuds, coaches’ words of praise or correction. But Zach also thought he could hear Steve’s thoughts.

  “Lana’s wrong about Lily sleeping with anybody else,” Zach said.

  Steve turned to him, and waited.

  Zach told him that Lily wouldn’t have risked not having a Corbett baby, and Steve nodded. Then he said, “It doesn’t make any difference who Nell’s biological father is. I’m her father now.”

  He waited, as if he expected Zach might argue. Then Steve added, low and even, “Zach, you’ve got to let her go.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Fran.” Even over the sound of the shower she heard Zach’s voice clearly. As clearly as if he weren’t outside the bathroom door.

  Had Steve found him? Maybe he wanted to talk.

  “I’m in the shower, Zach.”

  “I know. Why is the light off?”

  Oh, God, he
wasn’t on the other side of the door, he was on this side of the door.

  With a firm grip on the shower curtain, she stuck her head out of the gap between it and the tile wall.

  “Zach, what are you doing in here? You have to get out.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—because I don’t want you in my bathroom when I’m taking a shower.”

  “You do remember we made love last night?”

  Remember? She’d felt the tightening at the pit of her belly all day.

  “Besides,” he said. “I can’t see anything in here. It’s dark.”

  Not dark enough that she couldn’t see him taking his clothes off. He was beautiful, so beautiful. And then he was in the shower with her, tugging the curtain from her hold, then finding other places to put his hands. Warm, smooth places that responded and swelled.

  “Zach, what are you doing?”

  “The old line is that if you don’t know what I’m doing, I’m not doing it right. But you do know. So I am doing it right.”

  And he was. Oh, he was.

  “Stop. You have to stop.”

  He released her immediately. “What is it, Fran? What’s wrong?”

  “I…what happened last night was wonderful, and I appreciate it more than I can tell you. I’d forgotten—no, I never knew I could feel like that. It was kind of you to teach me—”

  “Kind? Teach you? I was not conducting a damned sex workshop.”

  “I’m thanking you.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “I’m trying to tell you that I understand.”

  “Do you? Then explain it to me.”

  “I know you’ve been grateful for my concern about the situation with Nell. And you might see a woman like me and think I’m lonely or—”

  “Is that what you think? I saw poor lonely Fran, no one to love, no one loving her, and I felt sorry for you? Pity and gratitude as an aphrodisiac? Is that what you think?”

  She winced at his sharp tone. “That’s not—”

  “Damn right it’s not. You’ve held out on me, Fran. That isn’t calm you have, it’s insulation to keep other people from getting too close.” Without touching her, he came almost nose to nose, the heat from his body and his anger reaching her in waves. “Tell me. Who told you you were any particular kind of woman? Was it the guy in Madison after you graduated?”

  She gaped at him. “How do you know about Tim?”

  Now he looked grim. “Tim, huh. So what did this jackass do?”

  “Zach, the hot water’s running out. Let me finish my shower—alone—and we can talk later.”

  “We’re talking now.” He reached past her and turned off the water. Then he opened the curtain enough to grab her bath sheet from the rack. “What happened with Tim?”

  She wrapped the bath sheet around her, hands crossed over where one end tucked in, but tried once again. “Zach—”

  “Talk.”

  So she did. A quick, unemotional and tactfully expurgated accounting of her doomed romance. She tried not to look at Zach, but quickly discovered that standing face-to-face with a man in a bathtub didn’t leave much else to look at. Especially not when the one time she looked down made her forget what she was saying entirely, and Zach had to prompt her about how Tim had seemed so gentlemanly and undemanding.

  When she finished he was quiet.

  Then he shook his head. “For a woman so smart about other people, you don’t have a clue about yourself. Not a clue. You believed this jackass? Took his word for who you are?

  “Fran, when we were kids, you scared the hell out of me. You were quiet and contained and you never fell for my bull. And when I came back and saw you standing up in the middle of that patch of garden, with leaves in your hair and those ridiculous clothes you wear to try to hide that body, I knew I’d been right to be scared of you. You are one dangerous woman. You go to my head like 400-proof whiskey. And you go to my body like…” He took one of her hands and placed it on his chest. “I don’t think I have to explain after last night.”

  Even if she’d known what to say, she couldn’t have mastered language at that instant.

  “I want to kiss you, Fran. Is that okay?”

  She nodded.

  Their only contact was her hand on his chest, but she felt the power of him all around her.

  His mouth touched hers lightly. Separated, and returned. She parted her lips, but he didn’t enter her mouth. He kissed the center of her bottom lip, the right side of her top lip, and every other portion, pressing gently or strongly, sucking into his mouth, or whispering across.

  Fran slid her hand up his chest, over his shoulder and around his neck, drawing him down to her, stroking her tongue deep inside his mouth.

  “Fran, Fran.” He rested his forehead against her. “I want to make love to you. But the protection’s in the other room. And you still have shampoo in your hair. So we’ll take it slow.”

  He loosened the bath sheet from her and tossed it over the rod, giving her a look that did not make her want to go slow. And then he reached around her again, rubbing and sliding against her bare, cooled skin with his bare, heated skin. When the warm water came on, it couldn’t compete.

  He massaged the shampoo out of her hair, then extended the massage, kneading her scalp, turning her so her back was to him, working down her neck, across her shoulders, down her arms.

  “Do you take showers in the dark a lot?”

  Enough light filtered in that it wasn’t totally dark, but she was too limp to argue. “Uh-huh.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Hmm, what?”

  “I like it.” He leaned closer, so his next words were a warm breath at her ear. “But I think I’d like your bed better right now.”

  She turned, put her arms around his neck and said “Yes” against his mouth.

  They made love. Slow and aching, yet soothing the ache.

  And then it wasn’t slow at all, the tremors coming so hard that Fran couldn’t hold them or the sounds back. She didn’t want to. She surrendered her calm, her insulation to Zach willingly.

  She held back only one thing, one word.

  Fran dozed afterward, her cheek on Zach’s chest. Amazing how comfortable a pillow something so hard could be. When she woke, she knew he was awake.

  He told her about his talk with Steve. He didn’t need to tell her he didn’t know what he would do about Nell.

  She led him into more talk about his work as an EMT and with the task force. In his answers to her questions, she heard the sureness, the groundedness she’d sensed in him that first day. He was a man doing what he was meant to do.

  “How do you deal with it, Zach, being closed in, digging through ruins, crumbling buildings hanging over you? How do you deal with the fear and the stress?”

  “The stress doesn’t usually hit until after, sort of a delayed reaction.” He shifted, putting his arm over his eyes, shadowing his face. “Fear doesn’t factor in. That’s what training’s for—how to do the job and how to know which jobs you can’t do. You can’t put yourself into many situations where you’re in danger before the team kicks you out—because that makes more work for everyone.

  “But being closed in? Now that’s bad. A lot of times you get in areas where the air’s been trapped and it’s stale and sour and foul and…” His eyes dimmed as his voice trailed off. She could imagine what could contribute to the air being so foul. Yes, she could imagine it, but he knew it.

  “You don’t like being closed in? Then how on earth can you do that job?”

  “Because the people who might be trapped don’t like it any better than I do, and we’re their best hope.” He said it as if it were obvious. Simple.

  “Besides,” he added, “there’s that amazing feeling of coming out. That instant you step into the open, and there’s only space around you and you can taste the fresh air. It’s like walking out of a tomb.”

  She suppressed a shiver at the phrase, not wanting to interrupt his concentra
tion.

  “Sometimes I think that’s the reason I do it. To get that feeling. It wouldn’t feel that good if it didn’t feel so bad before.”

  What a rush of freedom he must have felt when he’d left Tobias, Fran thought, for surely he’d had that sense of being trapped here, even entombed. He’d broken free and he’d been able to breathe.

  “Wait a minute. You go into bombed buildings and work in earthquake zones where they’re still having aftershocks and—”

  “It’s not that bad, Fran. We take every precaution and safety’s always the first priority.”

  “—and you’re afraid of raspberry bushes?”

  She saw the glint in his eyes a split second before he twisted, pinning her below him. “I told you, not afraid. Just a healthy respect.”

  “I don’t know why your stubborn brother’s insisting on this stupid prenup,” Kay groused. “We should be going over there to work with all of you.”

  Kay, Annette and Nell had shown up this morning for another before-school visit to Chester and the puppies. Each day the puppies grew more independent and Chester less protective. Now the dog rested her head on Kay’s knees and kept only one eye on the six fur balls climbing around Nell.

  Zach was putting new laces on a pair of high-top leather shoes.

  “Couldn’t you do the prenup later?” Annette asked.

  “Rob says we have to give the guy time to work on it so it’s done well before the wedding.”

  “Have you decided on a wedding date?”

  Kay grinned widely. “What do you think of a Christmas wedding?”

  “I think you’re nuts. A wedding in December? In Wisconsin? And at Christmastime? You know the risk that nobody’ll be able to get here? Or they’ll never be able to leave.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to wait. If we could pull it off for Thanksgiving…but Rob’s not sure he’ll be done in Chicago in time and Dora won’t be back from France until early December.”

  “What about your parents?” Fran asked.

  “They won’t be coming to the wedding. They’ll come to Chicago, but they refuse to venture to Tobias. Mother shuddered at the idea.”